Avi Schlaim, Collusion Across the Jordan Continues

A review from Mid-East Realities, 31 May, 1997

MER - "The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan" masquerades these days as a
pseudo-democracy in an attempt to molify both Arab and Western public
opinion -- most especially tourists and businesmen. It reality of
course Jordan is both a monarchy and a police-state; as anyone who
opposes the King's policies and Hashemite control quickly finds out
through visits from the secret police and to the dungeons that have
long served the regime.

COLLUSION ACROSS THE JORDAN, by Professor Avi Schlaim at Oxford
University, should be must-reading again these days. This epic book
is essentially the detailed secret history of Hashemite-Zionist
collaboration and collusion earlier this century - a mostly hidden
and secretive alliance that resulted in the dispossession of the
Palestinians and the triump of Israel in dominating the region.

Most of the most outrageous Jordanian-Israeli collusion -- and it has
been expanding in recent years -- takes place behind the scenes of
course. Plus there is considerable unter the table American
"encouragement" and payments to the Jordanian regime for its willingness
to play such a central role "peace" cum "domination" process.

Even today -- as Israel repeatedly continues to violate international
laws, U.N. resolutions, and its own "peace" agreements -- essentially
pushing the Palestinian onto shrinking ghettos surrounded by the Israeli
army -- the Hashemites continue to expand their collaboration with the
Zionists. And by doing so the Hashemite actually encourage the worst
aspects of Zionist ideology by confirming their ability to separate the
Arab regimes from one another as well as the ease with which Israel can
continue to play Hashemite domination off against Palestinian
nationalism.

Amazingly, Minister Ariel Sharon and his Jordanian counterparts are
right now moving quickly to establish a rail link between Jordan and
Israel, one that will allow Jordan to use Israeli Israeli Meditterean
ports and further encourage Western and Jewish tourism to Jordan. No
matter what the Israelis do to the Palestinians, no matter how many
Arab League resolutions call for boycotting Israel, the Hashemites
persist, collecting as much in money, arms, and i.o.u.'s for the
future as they can.

The following recent Reuter's report, also exposes just one small
element of the ongoing Hashemite-Zionist collusion whose history of
treachery runs so deep:

GAZA, May 24 (Reuter) - Jordan has handed over to Israel a
Palestinian whose wife carried out a shooting attack last month
at a crossing between the kingdom and the Israeli-occupied West
Bank, his lawyer said on Saturday.

Lawyer Hassan Abu Ahmad said Iyad Abu Libdeh, a Palestinian
living in Amman but originally from the self-ruled West Bank town of
Tulkarm, was arrested by Jordanian intelligence after his wife Souna
opened fire at the Allenby Bridge crossing.

Two Israelis and an Arab were wounded in the April 13 attack,
which came against a backdrop of Palestinian anger over Israel's
building of a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem, occupied by Israel
in 1967. The woman was taken into Israeli custody.

"The fact that he is a Palestinian and was handed over by
the Jordanian Intelligence to the Israelis but not to the Palestinian
Authority raises serious legal questions,'' Abu Ahmad, an Israeli Arab,
told Reuters.

"It is illegal. Abu Libdeh should have been handed over to
the Palestinians and not to Israel,'' he said.

Abu Ahmad said the Jordanians interrogated Abu Libdeh and
when they found they could prove nothing handed him over to Israel on
May 13. Israel and Jordan signed a peace treaty in 1994.

"I visited him in an Israeli prison on May 21. He has
strongly denied charges of aiding and training his wife...He is being
tortured and deprived of sleep for long periods of time,'' the lawyer
said...

Jordanian embassy officials in Israel and Israeli Prisons
Authority officials were not available for comment. A spokesman
for Israeli occupation authorities in the West Bank said he did
not know the case.

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